Nestle turns to satellites for palm oil supply monitoring

VEVEY, SWITZERLAND — Nestle S.A. will implement Starling, a satellite-based service, to monitor 100% of its global palm oil supply chains, the Vevey-based company said Sept. 14. The monitoring will assist Nestle in its “2020 No Deforestation” commitment. Nestle’s global palm oil supply chain was 63% deforestation-free by 2017.

Starling uses satellites from Airbus, a company in the aerospace industry, to provide year-round monitoring of land cover changes and forest cover disturbances. Airbus, along with non-profit organization The Forest Trust (T.F.T.) and radar satellite imagery company StarVision, launched Starling in 2017.

“In order to accelerate this (no-deforestation) journey, we have worked with Airbus and T.F.T. since mid-2016 to embark on a pilot project over the Perak landscape in Malaysia,” said Magdi Batato, executive vice-president and head of operations for Nestle. “Starling satellite monitoring is a game changer to achieve transparency in our supply chain, and we are pleased to extend this collaboration to cover 100% of Nestle's global palm oil supply chains by the end of the year. We will also extend this program to cover our pulp and paper supply chains next year as well as soya at a later stage.”